Biogerontology in The Economist

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There’s a nice piece on the biology of aging in the Science & Tech section of the most recent Economist (subscription required). I love the subhead: “It looks unlikely that medical science will abolish the process of ageing. But it no longer looks impossible”.

“IN THE long run,” as John Maynard Keynes observed, “we are all dead.” True. But can the short run be elongated in a way that makes the long run longer? And if so, how, and at what cost? People have dreamt of immortality since time immemorial. They have sought it since the first alchemist put an elixir of life on the same shopping list as a way to turn lead into gold. They have written about it in fiction, from Rider Haggard’s “She” to Frank Herbert’s “Dune”. And now, with the growth of biological knowledge that has marked the past few decades, a few researchers believe it might be within reach.